“For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith.”
- Romans 12:3
Self-love is a simple concept and yet, incredibly difficult to, both, achieve and maintain. In the age of social media, body enhancements, and the pervasive ideal of beauty is defined by society. It is no wonder that self-love is not second nature to most, but a process, an act that needs to be learned. But when it is learned, when we are able to stop comparing ourselves to others, to fight the voices of fear and doubt in our own heads and love ourselves in whatever shapes or forms we come in, exactly the way God made us. That is a beautiful thing and no small feat. However, there is a fine line between loving yourself and acting out to such an extent that “self-love” becomes a nuisance, an indulgence in yourself that has nothing to do with “love” and everything to do with the “self”.
There is nothing inherently selfish or demeaning about love, especially love for oneself and yet, self-love is used to characterize such behaviors. For example, if in order to love yourself, you have to put someone down, that is neither loving yourself nor is it loving your neighbor. There are too many people that misuse the term self-love, manipulating its meaning to adjudicate their belittling of others and believe that loving themselves makes them impervious to having flaws and that is not the case. A part of loving yourself is about knowing exactly who you are. It doesn’t mean that you are perfect and that there is no room for improvement, but rather, that you have a sense of self and recognize the work does not cease to be done because you love yourself. Self-love is about taking everything in about yourself and loving all of it, for better or worse, but also, being willing to take the next step to better yourself. That’s why it’s not a state of being, but a process, because you should be continuing to grow in love with yourself and who you are to others.
Paul reminds us in the scripture above to have an inherently humble spirit, understanding who we are and not thinking any more or any less of ourselves. The thin line between self-love and self-indulgence becomes a lot thicker when we heed Paul’s words. We’ve all heard the saying “if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.” Well, if you don’t know how to love yourself without implicating others or deluding yourself, then stop calling it self love.
Love who you are, but never love who you are just because you “come out on top” when comparing yourself to others. That is not self-love. You are fooling yourself, and hurting other people. Try taking some time this week to run through the reasons why you are love-able without comparing your qualities to someone else.
